Exploring Post/Graduate Academic Writing Practices, Research Literacies and Writing Identities

2016 ◽  
pp. 113-131
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Post Graduate ◽  
Writing Practices

Seeking transformation: how students in nursing view their academic writing context – a qualitative systematic review

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim M. Mitchell ◽  
Laurie Blanchard ◽  
Tara Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Professional Identity Development ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Qualitative Systematic Review ◽  
Transformative Writing

AbstractWriting practices in nursing education programs are situated in a tension-filled context resulting from competing medical-technical and relational nursing discourses. The goal of this qualitative meta-study is to understand, from the student perspective, how the context for writing in nursing is constructed and the benefits of writing to nursing knowledge development. A literature search using the CINHAL, Medline, ERIC, and Academic Search complete databases, using systematic methods identified 21 papers and dissertations which gathered qualitative interview or survey data from students in nursing at the pre-registration, continuing education, and graduate levels. The studies provided evidence that writing assignments promote professional identity development but overemphasis on writing mechanics when grading have a deleterious effect on learning and student engagement with writing. Relationship building with faculty should extend beyond what is needed to maximize grades. Suggestions for writing pedagogical reform are identified to facilitate a change in focus from mechanical-technical to transformative writing.

scholarly journals Hobson’s choice: the effects of research evaluation on academics’ writing practices in England

2017 ◽  
Vol 69 (5) ◽  
pp. 503-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Mcculloch
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Research Evaluation ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Evaluation Systems ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Qualitative Data Analysis Software ◽  
And Mathematics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of research evaluation policies and their interpretation on academics’ writing practices in three different higher education institutions and across three different disciplines. Specifically, the paper discusses how England’s national research excellence framework (REF) and institutional responses to it shape the decisions academics make about their writing. Design/methodology/approach In total, 49 academics at three English universities were interviewed. The academics were from one Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics discipline (mathematics), one humanities discipline (history) and one applied discipline (marketing). Repeated semi-structured interviews focussed on different aspects of academics’ writing practices. Heads of departments and administrative staff were also interviewed. Data were coded using the qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti. Findings Academics’ ability to succeed in their career was closely tied to their ability to meet quantitative and qualitative targets driven by research evaluation systems, but these were predicated on an unrealistic understanding of knowledge creation. Research evaluation systems limited the epistemic choices available to academics, partly because they pushed academics’ writing towards genres and publication venues that conflicted with disciplinary traditions and partly because they were evenly distributed across institutions and age groups. Originality/value This work fills a gap in the literature by offering empirical and qualitative findings on the effects of research evaluation systems in context. It is also one of the only papers to focus on the ways in which individuals’ academic writing practices in particular are shaped by such systems.

scholarly journals How recorded audio-visual feedback can improve academic language support

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Michelle Cavaleri ◽  
◽  
Satomi Kawaguchi ◽  
Bruno Di Biase ◽  
Clare Power ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Support ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Quality Feedback ◽  
The Impact

Providing effective, high quality feedback that students engage with remains an important issue in higher education today, particularly in the context of academic language support where feedback helps socialise students to academic writing practices. Technology-enhanced feedback, such as audio and video feedback, is becoming more widely used, and as such, it is important to evaluate whether these methods help students engage with the feedback more successfully than conventional methods. While previous research has explored students’ perceptions of audio-visual feedback, this paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature by examining the impact of the audio-visual mode on undergraduate students’ engagement with feedback compared to written-only feedback. Evidence from an analysis of feedback comments (n = 1040) and corresponding revisions as well as interviews (n = 3) is used to draw conclusions about the value of providing audio-visual feedback to help students revise their writing more successfully. In line with multimedia learning theory (Mayer 2009), it is argued that the multimodal format, conversational tone, verbal explanations and personalised feel of audio-visual feedback allows for a more successful engagement with the feedback, particularly for students with a lower level of English language proficiency.

scholarly journals Digital Writing, Word Processors and Operations in Texts: How Student Writers Use Digital Resources in Academic Writing Processes

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Sofia Hort
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Digital Writing ◽  
Student Writers ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Writing Processes ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Academic Genre ◽  
Word Processors

This study explores the use of digital technologies in the writing of an academic assignment. Fine-grained studies on student writing processes are scarce in previous research. In relation to the increasing demands on students’ writing, as well as the debate on students’ poor writing (Malmström, 2017), these issues are important to address. In this study, screen captures of five students’ essay processes are analyzed. The results show that students handle text at different levels: they make use of one or more word processors, arrange texts spatially on screens and use resources to operate directly in texts. Above all these actions seem to meet the need to move and navigate within one’s own text, an aspect that could be especially important in relation to the academic genre and for handling texts as artifacts in activity (Castelló & Iñesta, 2012; Prior, 2006). The results of the study point to the importance of making digital writing practices visible, especially those that could create possibilities to intertwine digital texts, thereby enhancing potentials for academic writing and meaning-making.

scholarly journals Polish and Ukrainian University Students’ Perspectives on Academic Writing: A Comparative Overview

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3(27)) ◽  
pp. 352-370
Author(s):  
Mariya Kozolup ◽  
Mariya Kokor ◽  
Ruslan Savchynskyi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Master's Degrees ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Professional Success ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Academic Communication

Communication, both written and oral, as the key to academic and professional success has received much scholarly attention in the academic communities of Western Europe and North America. However, in the Eastern European educational scene, teaching academic communication, especially academic writing, in institutions of higher education has been largely neglected for a long time. This research attempts to look at academic writing practices at two universities in Ukraine and Poland from the students’ perspectives. The survey conducted among students pursuing master’s degrees in education and pedagogy at both universities aimed to reveal their attitudes, beliefs and opinions in three domains: cognitive, social and affective. The results lead to some important inferences: students’ exposure to academic writing is insufficient; the potential of writing as a learning tool is not fully understood; students’ awareness of academic integrity is rather low. The tendencies observed across institutions are mostly similar with occasional significant differences.

scholarly journals Becoming academics: embracing and resisting changing writing practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saija Katila ◽  
Mikko Laamanen ◽  
Maarit Laihonen ◽  
Rebecca Lund ◽  
Susan Meriläinen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Group Method ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Writing Practice ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how global and local changes in higher education impact upon writing practices through which doctoral students become academics. The study explores how norms and values of academic writing practice are learned, negotiated and resisted and elucidates how competences related to writing come to determine the academic selves. Design/methodology/approach The study uses memory work, which is a group method that puts attention to written individual memories and their collective analysis and theorizing. The authors offer a comparison of experiences in becoming academics by two generational cohorts (1990s and 2010s) in the same management studies department in a business school. Findings The study indicates that the contextual and temporal enactment of academic writing practice in the department created a situation where implicit and ambiguous criteria for writing competence gradually changed into explicit and narrow ones. The change was relatively slow for two reasons. First, new performance management indicators were introduced over a period of two decades. Second, when the new indicators were gradually introduced, they were locally resisted. The study highlights how the focus, forms and main actors of resistance changed over time. Originality/value The paper offers a detailed account of how exogenous changes in higher education impact upon, over time and cultural space, academic writing practices through which doctoral students become academics.

scholarly journals A Pre-Experimental Study on a Process-Genre Approach for Teaching Essay Writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 44-54
Author(s):  
Wagdi Rashad Ali Bin-Hady ◽  
Aref Nassi Abdu Nasser Nasser ◽  
Abdu T. Al-Kadi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
College Of Education ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Signed Rank ◽  
Signed Rank Test ◽  
English Program ◽  
Academic Year

This study explored the feasibility of using a process-genre approach (PGA) for teaching academic writing from the perspective of EFL undergraduates. The sample consisted of 15 students enrolled in a four-year English program at the College of Education in Socotra, Yemen during the academic year 2018-2019. The study followed a pre-experimental design in which a pretest was given to the sample, and an extensive 30-hours program was pursued using the PGA. Additionally, ten informants were singled out for interviews to explore their opinions about the PGA-based teaching they experienced during the experiment. A Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to calculate the degree of significance in students’ improvement on opinion essay writing (Z=3.408, p < 0.05) between the pretest and posttest in favor of the latter. The findings also revealed that students had positive perceptions towards the PGA that was applied by their instructors. The findings suggest that applying such an approach in writing courses could engage learners in writing practices that they view positively.  

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